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Encouragement

GOD’S WILL AND GOD’S GRACE.

 Every Christian is so keen on knowing the will of God for their lives. This is actually what God wants us to do– to seek his will concerning our lives and partner with him in bringing it to fulfillment.

God has made it clear to us in the scriptures that having his fear, is the beginning of wisdom. He also enjoined us to get understanding alongside our getting of wisdom.

When we seek the will of God, which is wisdom in itself, do we move further to understand what the will of God entails?

God’s will is all-encompassing. It includes the good and unpleasant times; However everything is meant for our good. It will not only include the bright moments our minds have painted them to be, but also involve moments where we would have to drink the bitter content from the cup of his will( that cup Jesus wished he could evade unless it was truly the Father’s will for him to drink it).

Many do not foresee the stage where we would be given the cup to gulp down its bitter contents that’ll leave unforgettable scars, like those on the hands and feet of Jesus.

No wonder many complain when it gets to that part of God’s will that looks unpleasant. They devise schemes to evade drinking the content, and like Jonah, they end up in a similar situation.

When I consider the life of apostle Paul in the scriptures, I discovered that God reassures him often of his sufficient grace.

Why?

 It is because the bitter content in that cup cannot be drunk willingly by any natural man. We can never feel like gulping down its content. Even Jesus prayed, “…O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

He knew that human will cannot handle it because it is weak and fearful.

Paul suffered a lot of unpleasant circumstances( 2Corinth. 11: 23-27) but he kept trudging ahead in God’s will because God’s sufficient grace was upon his life.

God’s will is a sumptuous meal of HIS blessings, spiced with some trials and tribulations and washed down with a drink of calvary experiences

Jesus was able to embrace calvary when God’s angels ministered and strengthened him for that gruesome experience at the cross.

Therefore, friends, when we pray for God’s will to be done in our lives, let’s understand that there is a cup of bitter content reserved for us to drink, and we must prepare our hearts to seek God’s grace until he strengthens us to drink it. According to Mark 10:39 (KJV)”… And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:

Jesus has affirmed that we must drink the contents of that Cup if we truly want the full will of God to be done in our lives.

 Don’t box God’s will into a comfortable place because it exceeds that zone. God’s will is a sumptuous meal of HIS blessings, spiced with some trials and tribulations and washed down with a drink of calvary experiences (according to  Mark 10:30).

We shouldn’t be afraid of how the meal will taste, there’s a promise of sweetness after every bitter taste.

Remember, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was greater than his death. He won our battles when he was raised from the dead. Hallelujah!

Therefore we must have this hope that there’s always light at the end of every tunnel. Greater blessings await us at the other end of the bitter side of God’s will. Let’s remember Matt. 5: 11-12; The Bible also promised that we would reap in due season if we faint not.

Therefore, to prevent the unnecessary disappointments most Christians claim to experience when they’ve reached that point, we must seek God’s grace, which is the only enabler for us to drink the content of that CUP.

Surely, there are rosy moments in God’s will, and there are refreshing and exhilarating experiences in store for us, but we must remember that a time will come when we must drink from the cup that Jesus drank from. Only God’s grace can help us accept the unsavory part of God’s will, and do it with tears in our eyes, broken hearts, and in loneliness.

It’s the fire meant to refine us.

Instead of running away from it, we should seek God’s sufficient grace like Jesus did at Gethsemane. After the Gethsemane experience, he was not scared to face calvary anymore. He gracefully encountered the grievous experience at calvary because God’s grace helped him.

As God strengthened Christ to bear his cross, so has he made his grace available to us, through Christ. No matter the bitter experiences we would encounter while doing God’s will, we must remember that God’s grace is the currency we spend when doing God’s will. It is never on our account. God foots the bill of his will in our lives. If he helped the saints of old, he will surely help us, and make us victorious.

Categories
Encouragement

WE NEED MIRACLES

Humans remain humans. The ideology of some super humans doing the inconceivable by their strength only exist in fables. We spent our childhood loving and simulating these models because of their superpowers, only for us to see that they were unreal as we grew.

While it is true that some humans have clinched greater feats, yet their strength is limited.

 There is a limit to human’s strength.

As Christians, we cannot deny the fact that we are still humans i.e we are still existing in the flesh, and our blood still flows through our arteries and veins. There are quite a lot of things that we cannot accomplish with the human strength.

A portion of the scripture, ” by strength shall no man prevail…” confirms it. This is why God continually emphasizes the need for us to rely on his strength.

The notion that whenever we journey God’s road, we are going to have it all easy is erroneous . All the people God used to perform exploits never had it soft. Nonetheless, they prevailed through divine assistance.

Let’s consider the children of Israel. They were divinely instructed to go out of Egypt. This divine instruction was confirmed by God’s intervention in delivering them from slavery.

Alluding to their experiences, there are times it is evident we are treading the divine path, but like the children of Israel, we encounter the red sea. Not only this, we look back, only to find the adversaries fiercely pursuing us; then we try to maneuver our ways through the red sea. Few might have started nurturing the idea of negotiating their freedom with the enemies.

What should be our reactions in such periods?  

Anything ordained by God will certainly be sustained by God.

Like the children of Israel, we are expected to call out to God for help, until the ‘red sea’ is parted.

Whenever we face trials in life, God expects us to reach out to him first. However, some disappoint God by trying to finish what HE has started in their lives. They try to cross their red seas by manufacturing diverse boats that have failed, and will continually fail them.

This is the reason for the futility of the exerted efforts of many.

Any trial on our part to finish God’s project in our lives will land us in frustration.

Some situations will only take God’s miracle for us to have a breakthrough. When we are confronted with seemingly endless impossibilities as vast as the sea, we must acknowledge our need for a miracle to overcome the red sea-like dilemmas, else we get stuck and the enemies catch up on us.

It’s either God splits the red sea for us to walk through on dry land or he makes us walk on them, as Jesus did.

Anything ordained by God will certainly be sustained by God. Hence, his miracles, by his grace, are our sustenance factor.

We do need miracles. The only secret to thriving in hard times like this is God’s miracles which can be in form of his grace and mercies.

It is our sustenance. It keeps us afloat on life’s billows, enlivens our hopes, disappoints the enemies, recover our lost possessions, favors and protects us, and provide our needs. 

The divine resources have been, and will continually be our source of life and sustenance.

We need God’s miracles to thrive in these trying times.

 Let us keep asking for more of it.